After a frankly lazy day, and feeling a little guilty, we had our sightseeing enthusiasm back, and planned a day around ‘fun for Eli’.
It started with a game of ‘I Spy’…
(The word was ‘air conditioner’ incidentally)
And then a cab ride to the Japanese Gardens of Buenos Aires…
The Japanese Gardens in Buenos Aires are lovely – a great place to take the kids!
We sat in the sunshine, had a relaxing coffee and ice cream (there’s a snack bar and restaurant there)
And left the gardens to walk up to Palermo – a trendy part of the city…
Our first stop was Plaza Armenia which has a park and decent playground
Alongside the small park are some great buildings
From here it’s a short walk to Plaza Serrano, the ‘heart’ of Palermo. The walk over is very nice.
Plaza Serrano itself is not pretty – a bit like Camden Market – so we disappeared off into the side streets which are much nicer – and found an amazing Italian restaurant (at the corner of Gorriti and Thames) which was awesome…
They had this thing where they used some kind of high end book printing paper over the table clothes to cover the tables – super high impact.
Food (or rather, restaurant meals) are incredibly cheap in Argentina – a high end meal like this, with wine, was less than $60. And that’s using the official exchange rate. The same in Brazil would easily be $130 or more.
The meal was wonderful, well enjoyed… and it was time to continue onward to our next port of call… Abasto.
Abasto is a more commercial area, felt a bit like New York, with the main attraction the Abasto Shopping centre.
It’s housed in an old building which has been cleverly adapted to have shopping levels on the bottom 3 floors, and a kids amusement park on the top 2 floors. Genius.
I knew about the amusement park and had been hinting all day (to Eli) there was something coming up.
For now though we kept the amusement park a secret, while we negotiated a zip round the shops.
There’s no easy way to put this- we didn’t like any of the styles. With the caveat that it’s winter in Buenos Aires at the time of our visit, it was all platform shoes and not terribly appealing (to our tastes anyway) sweaters.
As we reached further up through the building the emphasis changed from clothes to kid’s stuff, and an interesting football attraction…
Two guys on a rotating pitch with the goal rotating in the opposite direction – some kind of Nike promotion.
We took the escalator up another level, and Eli’s eyes grew (and mouth dropped) as he saw the amusement park for the first time 🙂
He was literally jumping with excitement
“You mean I get my own credit card??”
… and using his card for the first time, some realization of ‘total freedom’
We put $20 on it and it lasted a really long time. $10 would be more than enough for one.
The card is good for all the attractions, including the amusement rides on the very top level (up from the arcade).
There was virtually no one about, and kids of around 6 and higher are free to ride virtually all the rides, unaccompanied.
It was a ‘scary parent’ moment, but Eli was keen for this right of passage. We could only look on and watch…
“Yes!”
That of course was just the beginning, and with one ride under his belt, it was on to more ambitious pursuits
I marveled at the custom ferris wheel they had fitted into the arched roof of the building (Eli went round it by himself)
I joined in for the bumper cars (compulsory)
And it was time to finish off the card with family bowling…
We left Abasto after 3 fun filled hours. There was an incident where I got covered in flour – to much hilarity (long story). Sadly no photos…
And it was back in a cab for the short ride back to Recoleta, and our hotel.
